Natalie Braber explores the lexical variation in East Midlands in ‘pit talk’, which is an economic and clear variety used in mining communities. The study describes the vocabularies in different coalfields, followed by discussions on the social identities revealed by the vocabulary used in miners’ life and work. Drawing on sense relation networks (SRNs), Braber's book sheds light on the methodology in industry-related dialect preservation and provides insights into how people relate words of synonymous meaning in a ‘web of words’.
In chapter 1, the author contextualizes linguistic heritage in the East Midlands mining communities, with a general introduction in chapter 2 to the historical and geographical features of the counties in East Midlands (i.e. Derbyshire, Leicestershire, and Nottinghamshire). The author notes that the demolished collieries result in the dismissal of pit talk users of the mining communities, therefore threatening the linguistic heritage that witnessed people's lives in the coal-dependent industrial era.
Chapter 3 illustrates the methodology to collect pit talk vocabulary. To evaluate miners’ awareness and usage of pit talk synonyms before the interview, the author adopts SRNs elicitation tasks by providing a graph with a central topic (e.g. equipment) and asking interviewees to think about dialect-specific synonyms around its linked subtopics (e.g. explosives) in the same semantic field. This allows more time for miners to reflect on their word use and gives interviewers prompts to initiate discussion. The author offers questionnaires for participants that cannot be reached for an interview.
Chapter 4 details the words collected from over one hundred participants in coalfields in the East Midlands. These include words for payment, shift patterns, dangerous conditions, tools, job titles, levels of management, coal seams, coal containers, safety devices, shafts, roadways, equipment, and locations. The author reveals that some pit talk words are universally used by the miners’ community (e.g. ‘sick money’ for taking sick leave), while there are words exclusively used by a small group of miners (e.g. ‘dudley’, which refers to the metal bottle for drinking water).
In chapter 5, the author concludes that word use varies by coalfield, after comparing the results with existing studies of pit talk in other regions of Britain and other parts of the world. Miners’ movements between the coalfields would contribute to new varieties. In addition, non-standard word use is emphasized among miners to show their distinctive identities as coalfield workers in a close-knit mining community. The author calls for the involvement of local communities to preserve dialects such as pit talk, which ensures public engagement in memorizing local histories that are quickly passing away.
Overall, this book provides an overview of the lexical variety and the cultural identity within mining communities in the East Midlands, paves the way for further pit talk studies in other regions, as well as enriches people's understanding of such spontaneous and informally delivered language in mining industries that would otherwise be forgotten. It is recommended to researchers and general readers who take interest in dialect lexical knowledge and preservation regarding industry-specific groups.
